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Supporting locally led innovations to address challenges heightened by Covid-19
The Covid-19 crisis has adversely impacted communities and businesses worldwide.
Are you motivated to address the crisis in creative ways that can help your immediate community, customers, suppliers and business model during this outbreak?
Have you built, created or thought of innovative solutions to the coronavirus pandemic and how it is affecting your community, then we want to hear from you? Whether you are an impact-driven startup, SME or an energetic individual, you can apply to the youth-led innovative challenge and receive support for your ideas. Read on for more information!
The Work in Progress! Alliance is an initiative that seeks to enable young people from diverse backgrounds to generate sustainable living wages and create optimism about their future in Egypt, Nigeria and Somalia. Sponsored by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Alliance consists of Oxfam Novib, Venture Capital for Africa, Butterfly Works and a number of national partners in our project countries.
The Work in Progress! team believes that locally-led innovations should be harnessed and supported to solve the challenges that the coronavirus outbreak has heightened. The Innovation Challenge is a competition that Oxfam is launching in Egypt, Nigeria and Somalia. It will provide two €10,000 awards in each country.
Additionally, the winners of the Challenge will be eligible for technical support from our partners including the possibility of mentorship from Innovation Challenge participants in the other project countries. The award is meant to assist each winner to develop, implement and put in full operation an innovative solution to help alleviate their community or business from the impact of the Coronavirus.
Through this innovation challenge, The Work in Progress! project aims to support and learn from youth-initiated innovative action that addresses a common challenge across all three project countries. Successful project experiences and lessons learned will be shared through the Work in Progress! and Oxfam networks.
Selection process
This Innovation Challenge is for young people, startups and small businesses registered in Egypt, Nigeria and Somaliland. Candidates will apply online by completing an application form (below), elaborating plans for the innovation project, presenting a proof of concept and budget. A panel of judges will review and score all applications and invite the best applicants to pitch their ideas and proposals through a virtual presentation. The panel will then select two winners (per country).
Planning
Eligibility criteria
Assessment criteria
Non-eligible costs
Apply now
We are accepting applications from both individual candidates with a fully developed idea/concept addressing the above-mentioned challenges, as well as from eligible startups and SMEs. Please register and fill in the applicable form below.